Latest Chrome 'experiment' goes to Oz

WebRTC. CSS3. WebGL. HTML5. They sound like an alphabet soup of coding languages. But browser makers are creating projects to explain why this apparent gobbledygook is important, and Google's next one puts you on a well-trod yellow brick road.

Created in conjunction with Disney and the production company Unit9 to help promote the upcoming movie, "Oz the Great and Powerful," the experiment leverages the latest in Web standards to create a browser-based experiment that previously could have been completed only with Adobe Flash.

In the experiment, called Find Your Way to Oz, you can compose music, goof around with a photo booth, and make a short movie with a zoetrope. If you survive the tornado that attempts to whisk you away, the wizard himself reaches through your screen to shake your hand.

Note that when using the zoetrope and photo booth, the experiment will ask for your permission first. But WebRTC is an indication of how powerful the Web is becoming: your browser can interact directly with your hardware.

Google advises using Chrome with Find Your Way to Oz, and the experiment will warn you when you run it in another browser. However, it ought to work in any modern browser. Google also has built a scaled-down version of Find Your Way to Oz that runs on Chrome for
Android and iOS.

Senior writer Seth Rosenblatt covers Google and security for CNET News, with occasional forays into tech and pop culture. Formerly a CNET Reviews senior editor for software, he has written about nearly every category of software and app available.